Bogeyman Politics

The political world always seems to have a bogeyman that everyone picks on. Political leaders love to beat their chests and point the figure at the evil dictator.

Once it was Idi Amin. Then Muammar Gaddafi filled the bill. When Tony Blair brought him in from the cold, Slobodan Milosevic of Serbia stepped up to take his place. Once he had been deposed, Saddam Hussein became the leader that the world hates, although he had been an ally of the United States. Once he was gone, the politicians of the world needed a new bogeyman to ostracise. They tried President Ahmadinejad of Iran, but once they realised that his power is limited and that he will step down after the next election, they realised he could not fulfil the role, so Muammar Gaddafi was bought back in for another innings, but he did not last for long. Now President Bashar al-Assad of Syria is the evilest man in the world.

None of these guys were very nice, and the world is better off without them all, but I am struck by the hypocrisy of it all. Hillary Clinton rants to the United Nations about the evil President Assad attacking his own citizens, but when the King of Bahrain attacks his citizens, she is strangely silent, because he provides America with a military base.

A dozen other American “allies” are no better, and many are worse than Bashar al-Assad. The Saudi Arabian kings and princes have never been elected. They are suppressing their own citizens and funding violent activity all over the world, but they are okay, because the West needs their oil. Many of the dictators of central Asia are worse, but the West does not want them slipping into the Chinese orbit.

William Haig, the British Foreign Secretary berates Bashar al-Assad of Syria in a voice that is a bizarre mixture of whining and pompous, but he ignores the fact that many of the problems in the Middle East arise the way that the British and the French chopped up the region after the first world war.

Presidents and Prime Ministers line up to point the finger at the evil dictator that the world has chosen to hate during the current season. This is just like Jesus’ parable of the pharisee and the tax collector.

Two men went up to the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee stood by himself and prayed: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other people—robbers, evildoers, adulterers—or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week and give a tenth of all I get.’ “But the tax collector stood at a distance. He would not even look up to heaven, but beat his breast and said, ‘God, have mercy on me, a sinner.’ “I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted (Luke 18:9-14)

The Pharisee trivialised his own sin, by pointing up at the sin of someone who appeared to be worse. This is a common method for dealing with sin. Point the finger at someone who is worse than you, and your own sins suddenly seem less serious. Find someone bad enough and you will feel almost good.

This Pharisee method is popular with politicians, too.

Their problem is that deep down, most political leaders know that they are guilt of misusing power that does not truly belong to them. They make decision that they do not have a mandate to make. They have used their power for personal benefit. Without the cross of Jesus, they have no alternative but to use the Pharisee method. They make themselves feel better, by shifting the attention to someone who is much worse. That is why they always need a political bogeyman to point their fingers at. It does not matter who this person is, as long as there is a general consensus that they are really evil. This is why they politicians always agree on who is the bogeyman, even though they could not agree on many other things.

The more evil the bogeyman can be painted, the more justified the politicians feel.

As an aside, politicians have been able to take on the role of exposing evil, because prophets to the nations have been missing in church, or silent. Confusing prophetic and political roles dangerous. Prophets, judges and military leaders have different roles that must be kept separate. See Prophetic Ministry.